Darkness
by GoddessOfSuffering
Summary: (Unofficial sequel of "Different".) Loki never realised just what effect the void had on someone's mind. Although, he was too far gone to realise anything anymore


**This is the unofficial sequel to "Different", so if you want you can check that out too :P**

**I have no idea where this came from, I was just listening to music and then I was like 'let's write a depressing fanfiction!' so here it is. I'm not entirely happy with it though...**

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Darkness.

Loki was in darkness.

It was an impenetrable darkness, not banished by even the brightest light he could conjure. It went for as far as he could see, and no space at all. There was no sound, but the silence was deafening. It was cold, but also stiflingly hot. The darkness seemed to press against him on all sides, enclosing him inside of an invisible container when he fell through empty space.

He was in The Void.

He welcomed it as an old friend at first, as he had always been the one who lurked in the shadows and preferred darkness to light. He was glad for the darkness, as it meant he wouldn't be able to see the grotesque things that his books said inhabited the space there. He was relieved, as it meant he could be alone and untroubled for the first time in his life, without anyone else there to pressure or judge him.

At first it was peaceful.

_But_, Loki reflected, _he should have known that nobody travels in the Void and stays sane, or even alive._

After a while of falling through nothing, which isn't really falling at all, the darkness seemed to seep into his mind and into his heart. Loki at the time didn't realise it was happening, he was too busy replaying the scene on the Bifrost over in his head. _Why couldn't he get anything right? Why was Odin never proud of the things Loki did, only what Thor did?_ Of course, he knew the reason to this, but he was determined not to let his train of thought go that way, even if it was his dying thought.

Loki soon grew wary of the darkness, his eyes seeing shadows moving in the nothingness, where there was nothing but nothing. He thought he heard whispers in his ear, wordless, like the soft caress of wind where there was no wind at all. He began to feel as if he was falling through air, where before he was calmly drifting. He began to realise there was no end to this.

He would fall, and fall, and fall.

He would probably fall until Ragnarok came and the Void, and himself, were no more.

He was doomed to a fate of falling and darkness.

Where before he had enjoyed being left alone for once, he now felt abandoned and unloved. He thought about the vast size of the Void, encompassing the entire universe yet nothing at all. He realised just how small and insignificant he was. He began to hate the darkness. He felt alone. And he didn't like it.

_After all,_ he thought, _even your shadow leaves you when you are in darkness._

And this was the darkest darkness of them all.

He slowly started to lose his mind, the Void making its mark on its victim. He forgot things about his life on Asgard. His father -_not my father. But who is?_- he remembered as someone who didn't love him. _Why didn't he love me? What is love?_ He remembered his mother, Frigga, as someone who cared for him -_what does that mean? Why would she not fear a monster like me? Why am I a monster?_- and loved him. _There's that word again. Love. What does it mean?_ And he remembered his brother, who's shadow he was always in, who always claimed to love him but always ignored him.

He didn't understand what these people had meant to him. They seemed like strangers. Over time he began to hate these strange people who kept invading his thoughts. He stopped thinking about them.

He began seeing strange creatures in the darkness, creatures with blue skin and red eyes. They would laugh at him and call him weak, then disappear. Some would touch his arm, and he would feel a chill spread through his whole body. He knew these creatures were familiar, but he couldn't remember why. He always felt a sense of foreboding when they appeared, but he didn't understand why.

A small part of his mind knew that these creatures weren't real, that he was hallucinating and letting the Void get to him.

Another, larger part of his mind joined in with this thought, but added on phrases like _you're weak_ and _they're right_ and _pathetic_.

The rest of his mind, plagued with darkness, ignored the other parts and continued to suffer.

He began to realise that he was not in darkness.

The Void was emptiness, therefore darkness could not exist there. It was simply that light could not exist there either. Come to think of it, Loki could not -_should not_- exist there.

After seven Midgardian months, the equivalent to a millennia down in the Void, Loki's mind was a blur.

A blur of loss and anger and confusion and pain and blue skin and red eyes and magic and green and gold and A Darkness That Is Not Darkness At All.

The only thing he knew was that he was falling.

Falling where? Who knew. Who was falling? He didn't know. Why? No clue.

Then finally, one clear thought broke free of the jumbled mess of incoherentness that was now Loki's brain. A thought that he didn't understand, but the words kept replaying in his head. It was so loud, after eons of stifling silence, that Loki thought he would go deaf from the intensity of it. Those eight words brought his mind back to order, returned him to sanity, freed him from the darkness.

_When you fall, you always hit the ground._

His mind clung to the thought, forcing it to function again and expel the darkness that had smothered it. That thought freed his mind from the Void. Little did he know that it would free his body from it as well.

He hit the ground. Hard.

At first he was only aware of a dull pain. His battered mind latched onto the pain, using it to pull itself back to reality. The closer he got, the worse the pain became. The worse the pain became, the more aware of himself he became. The more aware he was, the more his memories came back to him.

_He was Loki. Son of Laufey. Jotun. Monster. Fell into the Void to die._

But he was still alive.

He was lying on his back on a rocky ground, staring up at a purple sky. He couldn't move, and he realised this was probably because he had broken every bone in his body.

He had fallen out of the Void and hit the ground. The ground of where was a mystery.

He had survived the Void, where only one had done so before him.

As he lay there, different emotions chased their way across his face:

Anger. _He wanted to die. He didn't want to be alive. He should have died in the Void._

Relief. _The darkness is gone. The emptiness. This is real. He survived the Void with his mind intact._

Confusion. _Where was he? There is nowhere this far down in the Void. Did he fall far? What was real and what wasn't?_

Contentment. _He could stay here until he healed, make a new life somewhere. This was Yggdrasil giving him a second chance. All he had to do was wait._

But all that turned to fear and dread when he heard footsteps coming towards him. Injured and defenceless, all he could do was stare as the creature bent over him and stared him in the eyes. The creature had purple skin, a square chin, and luminous blue eyes. He had a neutral on his misshapen face, his eyes not giving away any of his thoughts. Behind him was what looked like a small army of lizard people, appearing armour that covered their faces but left their glowing blue eyes visible.

_Chitauri_, a faint voice in the back of his head supplied for him. _And Thanos._

Suddenly he started wishing that he had never been freed from the Void.

Thanos must have seen the fear flicker in Loki's eyes, as he broke out into a grin. There was an almost unbearable pause, where Loki could feel Thanos scrutinising his broken body and the power it hid within. Then, when Thanos dragged his eyes back up to meet Loki's, unforgiving blue locked on dread-filled green, Thanos said the words that condemned Loki to a fate of rage and pain and insanity:

_"Take him to the dungeons. We will have use for this one."_

Then he was plunged into a whole different kind of darkness.

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**Please R&R, let me know what you think.**


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